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For the truly insane: 1800-horsepower Mosler MT900S

The standard Mosler MT900S is a supercar by anyone's standards. It's got a sleek body made of carbon fiber, a 7.0-liter V8 with 550 horsepower, and can hit 60 mph in just over three seconds. But for one of Mosler's customers it just wasn't enough. The owner of this MT900S enlisted the help of Nelson Racing Engines in Chatsworth, CA to build the ultimate motor for his supercar: a twin-turbo 427ci V8 producing up to 1800 horsepower on race fuel and around 1100 horsepower using 91 octane. To help make the car more streetable, boost can be controlled every 100 rpm in each gear. The first few gears are limited to around 6-8 psi, while higher gears can take full boost -- over 30 psi! We recently got the chance to see the car in person at the NRE facility where they were doing final testing on the engine. The dyno run we witnessed netted nearly 1600 horsepower before the intake collapsed from the pressure. We were told that the car should be completely finished in the next couple weeks and that we could come back for a ride. We'll be sure to take them up on the offer!

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Anonymous

Anonymous

6 Years Ago

I can only imagine what that was like standing by the car for the dyno run. When standing about 5 feet away next to my brother's naturally aspirated G35 when he lifts off the throttle after reving, my jeans on my legs get pushed around by air. That much pressure differential must compress your ear drums.

Anonymous

6 Years Ago

RJ,

The story was reported in Road & Track and they got the quote from Ongais, so I have no reason to believe it's not true.

What the post is supposed to mean is this. There's power and there's usable power. Porsches from that period were notorious for their tendency to spin if too much power was applied too soon to a short wheelbase, tail heavy car. If you know anything at all about the physics of handling, this should come as no surprise.

When you add turbo lag, something else the early Turbos were famous for, it's not hard to see how easy it would be to overpower the tires mid-corner when you nail the throttle...wait, wait...then all that power kicks in.

Race cars on the other hand are engineered to handle well and to allow you to apply power early in order to exit a corner. That's why their engines are in front of the rear axle (unless they're front engined), closer to the center of the car and to the polar moment of inertia, instead of behind it as is the case with 911.

These days Porsche controls oversteer on the 911 in a number of ways, using wider tires in the rear than in the front, through traction and stability control and with the Turbo, all wheel drive (except for the GT2).

Read any road test of a seventies 911 if you don't believe me, especially the Turbo, and you'll see the tendency of the cars to swap ends talked about constantly. In the Turbo's case this tendency was extreme because of turbo lag and driver talent wouldn't trump an inherently unstable car.

As for the Mosler; VW group had a great deal of trouble coming up with the tires for the Veyron that could handle the car's power. I suppose the Mosler owner has solved this problem, but if he hasn't, most of this power will be useful for nothing except turning rubber into smoke.

There is such a thing as having more engine than chassis. That was the point of the post.

Anonymous

6 Years Ago

Nice to revisit the CanAm cars of the 70's .....the most powerful, fastest, road race cars ever built. The 917 Porsches ended the reign of the Reynolds/ Chevy 502 big blocks putting out close to 1000 normally aspirated HP !!For those that are too young to remember those cars in that series the rules were basically...."there are no rules".Only safety rules.......... no weight penalties, no restrictors, no boost limits, run what you brung.But they didn't know as much about Aero packages and downforce, and tires, so modern cars could beat them if unrestricted. I believe Mark Donahue held closed circuit land speed records at Talledega for years at over 300 MPH in the Sunoco Porsche 917 CanAm car. The McLaren M8's, Jim Hall Chapparrals, and the 917s' were limited basically only by the safety of the tires of the day. 20 of those cars made the earth shake at the start of a race. Certainly an event not equaled by todays' cars.

Anonymous

torcho is right in saying that aerodynamic drag increases with the square of velocity. (But the square of 2 is not 8)

So assuming ed's research is correct, a car with 3x the power could go root(3) times faster. 1.732*211mph = 365mph. Yeah.

But theoretical calculations mean nothing. This calculation assumes that no other forces are acting on the car. With things like mechanical drag and rolling resistance from the tires, we know that doesn't hold up in reality.

Once a car gets up to these speeds, aerodynamics are much more important than horsepower. Even gearing is more important than (peak) horsepower.

Anonymous

Anonymous

6 Years Ago

Actually, because of the progressive boost it's capable of pretty decent mileage - about 20 mpg on the freeway. It's essentially like a Z06 with just a little boost. Of course, if you get into the throttle I'm sure it drops like a rock.

Anonymous

Anonymous

Anonymous

6 Years Ago

Back in the seventies there was an Indy Car driver named Danny Ongais. Ongais owned one of the early 911 Turbos. A fan asked him how he managed to drive the boosted Porsche fast through corners. Ongais replied that he didn't drive it fast through corners. Something about snap oversteer.

Dude obviously had no idea.

This reminds me of something Jeff Goldblum's character said in "Jurassic Park;" the question isn't can you do it, the question is should you?

Anonymous

6 Years Ago

??? What the hell is this post suppose to mean?

In any case, I doubt it was a real tale. If you could pilot an open-wheeled racecar in the 70's, be it an F1 or Indy, chances are "snap-oversteer" in a street car is about as exciting as stall parking at the mall.